I want to call your attention to a fantastic new blog called FWD/Forward – Feminists with disabilities for a way forward. The blog’s purpose is pretty self-explanatory. The folks who started it are feminists with disabilities who write about disability issues and the intersection between feminism and disability rights activism. Some of the bloggers are people I’ve long admired and others are new to me, but all are engaging writers who make it hard for me to think of anything to add.

They have a series called “Ableist Word Profile,” in which bloggers profile ableist words and phrases, discuss how they’re used, and talk about how to stop using them. The other day abby jean covered “hysterical.” She explains the etymology and history of the word as well as modern applications and addresses why it is problematic.

I have written before about my invisible disability (if you could call it that), and this FWD has given me so much food for thought already about my own circumstances and the intersection of feminism and ableism. I’m excited about what they’re doing and hope to learn a lot and incorporate disability issues into my own writing and activism more often.

I don’t know about this word policing, SarahMC. I agree with the reason behind the effort, but complaining about, say, the word “idiot” because it used to have a diagnostic meaning that no one under 50 remembers, or the word “cretin” because 500 years ago it was a derogatory term is to ignore the way language works.

“Hysterical”. because it still has the connotation of referring exclusively to female behavior, is one I agree with. But insisting on banning a word because of a meaning it had which only linguists know of is just overkill and detracts from the real seriousness of the cause.

mischiefmanager: Did you read the actual posts you’re referring to? “Idiot” was present in the law until very very recently (you might also like to look up “idiot savant”), and “cretinism” (and cretin; see also this Google Scholar search) remains routinely used in the medical community, with not a hint of impending obsolescence. There’s nothing ancient about these usages at all.

Agreed. I would be interested to hear how you and others feel about the language question though.

The thread about “idiot”, for instance, contained a long and thoughtful post about the origins of the word, its historical use and reflections about the propriety of using it now. But the original poster’s response was,I thought, snippy and defensive. If you can’t raise questions about a topic that is clearly in flux and developing, how are we going to reach consensus?

I’m leery of the language police no matter which side they’re on, so all the discussion of how we should cease and desist with words like “idiot”, “dumb”, “hysterical” etc. rubbed me the wrong way. Yes, they can be offensive, but that’s because they’re meant to offend. Language has many purposes and not all of them are kind or well-intentioned. Language is also extremely slippery and mutable depending on which society and era you live in: think of what the words “gay” or “colored” meant to our grandparents and what they mean now.

SarahMC has educated me a little about why I shouldn’t use the word “lame”, which came as a complete surprise to me–I had always seen it as a word that had a concrete meaning and a slang meaning, and didn’t think there was anything particularly wrong with the colloquial one. Now, I try not to use it, because I realize it’s an offensive red flag to the disabled community (although, interestingly, my sister, who is a member of that community, has no problem with it and uses it all the time).

But going through long lists of words and plucking out all the ones that people might find offensive is like trying to hold a leaky dike together with your fingers. Whenever people are banned from using one sort of language, they instantly find other words to suit their purpose and just keep going.

(MM you might not be surprised to know that I’m not a huge fan of the extremely loose translations of the new Reform prayerbook for similar reasons. If you don’t like it, take it out, but don’t monkey with the English to disguise the meaning of the original Hebrew)

@Becky – Yeah, “lame” I’m ideologically on board with (although it’s hard to not use it). But I have serious disagreements with some of the rest. The post on “idiot” says that usually when people say “idiot”, they mean thoughtless, rude, hasty, etc. I might be unusual, but when I use the word idiot (or synonyms), I use it to express the idea that someone isn’t as smart as I am. As far as I know, there aren’t any other words to communicate that idea and, honestly, it’s a pretty valuable one to me and I don’t want to lose it. (What does that say about me? Possibly only bad things.)

The thing is, though, that I think lame is an ableist word to use in a different way than the author described. She argues that lame is ableist because “it assumes that having difficulty walking is objectively bad”. This puzzles me. What I find ableist about the word “lame” is that it associates a whole set of bad things with having difficulty walking when the two sets really have nothing to do with one another. The closest thing to a disability I have is myopia, and I’d be a little upset if every time someone couldn’t go to the park because it was raining, they said that was myopic. But it doesn’t mean that myopia, or difficulty walking, aren’t (in some sense) objectively bad. In my opinion, they’re bad in specific ways, not ways that should be used as catch-all terms. But that doesn’t change the fact that both are conditions that negatively effect how one’s body operates (the different, of course, being that myopia is much better supported by society, but if society stopped existing, I’d be screwed, too). This is sort of my qualm with “what’s your problem”, too: sometimes people actually do have problems that lead them to act in upsetting ways, not all of which are disabilities. What’s wrong with recognizing that some things are problems? I find this very puzzling.

@baraqiel: Totally agree. And the whole kerfluffle over “idiot” struck me as, well, kind of idiotic. It’s usually used to mean someone who’s stupid, ignorant, rude, etc (I believe there’s a little picture of George W. Bush next to it in Merriam-Webster).

Yes, it’s offensive. But it’s supposed to be offensive. We can argue about the etymology or how the meaning has evolved, but it was never a nice word and it still isn’t. Regardless, not-nice words have a place in the language too.

It’s… kind of funny how “it’s supposed to be offensive, so it’s OK” comes out when it isn’t really affecting oneself personally…

I don’t see how we can speak about language at all, if “Well, if it’s meant to be offensive, you can’t criticize it” is an acceptable argument.

Also, snippiness might just be because, again, these words and the structure they come from and reinforce happens to be a structure which results in Seriously Bad Things which I’m not going to go list *again* because I’ve done it enough times recently.

Suffice to say, some of the contributors have experienced institutionalization because of these exact attitudes.

… and thank you VERY much for the link! I’ve not had nearly enough energy the past few weeks but I definitely appreciate all the positive attention we’ve received for this, from people we very much respect.

And now to add some oil to the fire, how do we define disability? Who gets to define it? I was reading the bio of one of the founders of this blog, who lists asthma as one of her disabilities. Now I agree that it can be debilitating. But I don’t agree that simply having a chronic illness makes you disabled. Baraqiel is right: should myopia count? What about allergies? What about chronic conditions that are well controlled with medication?

At a certain point, if we live long enough, we will all have chronic physical problems. Does that mean that everyone will be disabled?

I’m really, really not trying to be insensitive or belittling. But we live in a society that celebrates victimhood (it’s still Pink Month!), and I think that’s a very unhealthy way to approach life. Of course, society should absolutely do everything it reasonably can to make life easier for those with physical disabilities. But BeckyS is right too. In a culture that has a great deal to learn about disabilities and how to help to mitigate them, it’s imperative to pick your battles. Fighting about words which are clearly not intended to be cruel or derogatory is a waste of time.

It’s… kind of funny how “it’s supposed to be offensive, so it’s OK” comes out when it isn’t really affecting oneself personally…I don’t see how we can speak about language at all, if “Well, if it’s meant to be offensive, you can’t criticize it” is an acceptable argument.

I’m just saying that if something’s meant to be offensive, then criticizing it for being offensive seems kind of pointless. The speaker’s clearly chosen to be rude, so dinging them: “ooh, that’s rude!” is a waste of time.

The bigger problem IMO, is when people think something isn’t offensive when it actually is, like “retarded” to mean “stupid” or “Jewing” someone to mean “cheating.” Those are the times when people need to be educated, and be more thoughtful about their word choices. I don’t exclude myself from that group, btw.

@amandaw – Right, but you didn’t answer the question. I wear glasses, get migraines with auras that make me effectively unable to see for 2-3 hours, and get cramps that make me effectively unable to move or speak for the better part of a day. All of that can be described as disabling, but I’ve never considered myself a disabled person and I don’t think it would be valid of me to do so. I remember seeing something at FWD about a consciousness-raising post addressing identifying as disabled, but I don’t think it’s up yet — unless I’m missing it?

@amandaw: If you’ll look at my post again, you’ll see that I was careful to say specifically that asthma can without a doubt be disabling. (For what it’s worth, I have it too, along with other conditions-just as quite a lot of humanity has some condition or other, some more debilitating than others.) If you have a problem with something in a post, it would move the discussion along more effectively if you said exactly what it is, who said it and why you disagree with it. Statements like “people can…” are imprecise and unhelpful.

Every language has words that are intended to be insulting. That’s because we want to be able to use insulting words. BeckyS is right. Take one away and 2 more pop up in their place.

It’s valid to describe the origins of a word and explain how that word has been used. But it’s not valid to insist that a word be dropped from a language decades or centuries after its meaning has morphed into something entirely different. We have words in common usage that are being employed hurtfully and inaccurately, which is where the ableism language discussions are very productive. People use “hysterical” and “retarded” and “lame” every day, with deliberate reference to their literal meanings, and those are words we can educate their users about. No such intention is meant with “idiot” and “cretin”, which is why they are lost causes.

@amandaw – We’re all interested in having a productive conversation, I promise. But that doesn’t seem to be happening for some reason. I’d like to take a slightly different tack, which hopefully will be more fruitful.

I see a clear qualitative difference between “lame” and “idiot” and it seems to me that you don’t. The difference isn’t the same one that mischiefmanager mentioned, although I think that’s important too (language does evolve and the etymologies of words don’t always have relevance to their current usage, but I understand why that argument is problematic to you). The difference to me is this: there are other words for “uncool”. There are no other words to express the idea of a differential in intelligence if “idiot”, “stupid”, and “dumb” are all too problematic to use. When you talk about language usage, there are a couple of concerns. Perpetuating oppression is a huge and important one, there is no doubt of that and I don’t think anyone here disagrees. But criticizing sets of words like the three I mentioned isn’t a matter of changing word choice to be more respectful, it’s a matter of losing meaning from our language. The same with criticizing the construction “he is blind to [his privilege, the consequences, etc.]“. Humans relate to the world through our bodies and we describe our relationship to the world by referring to our bodies because of that.

I’m sympathetic, but I think you’re going about this in a slightly backwards fashion. Language reinforces, but it also reflects. Our language used to be a lot more gendered than it is now (how often do you hear someone referred to as an “authoress” any more?), and although change is slow, as gender equality is approached in non-linguistic ways, the language changes accordingly. I know it seems like we’re stuck on the language thing, but over 1/10th of the posts on FWD at the moment are Ableist Word Profiles so it seems to be a big focus of the site (forgive me if that’s a mistaken impression). Of course you are free to decide where to focus your energies — I am trying to gently suggest that this might not be the most productive route. Especially since so much of the rest of the blog has been really enlightening! For example, I honestly never thought about hot cars as an ability issue, just an annoyance, but that post was spot-on, that could be a huge problem and this seems like a great opportunity to plant more trees. Do you see what I mean?

Discussions about language are interesting and important to have. I did not intend for this thread to be a forum for the FWD bloggers to defend their opinions, though. I might have unintentionally invited that by highlighting a word profile I like but I don’t think it’s fair to continue in this fashion. I’m not asking anyone to stop commenting if they would like to continue the conversation but I want to make the purpose clear: to lead people to a new blog about disability issues and to state my intention to address hardships faced by people with disabilities and women with disabilities in particular.

SarahMC, I don’t want to sound aggressive here, but why shouldn’t people with disabilities have to defend their opinions? The rest of us do, and if we want to convince people of our points of view, we should be prepared to do so.

And again, I am not meaning to sound snarky here, but if the site is really only meant to be a place for feminists with disabilities to share their thoughts and concerns, the hosts should make that clear. They have the right to have such a place. But if they throw it open to everyone, they have to expect questions. Questioning is not in and of itself hostile. If my questions came across that way, I do apologize. But I really tried to explain where I was coming from and ask questions that I think are legitimate. I have yet to get good answers, either here or on the site itself.

I’m really not a fan of many of the comments on this thread regarding FWD, especially comments from mischiefmanager (but others as well). Maybe you’re not trying to sound rude or offensive, but I saw your posts on FWD and both there and hear offensive or snarky seems to be like exactly what you were going for.

They didn’t do a good enough job explaining what their site is…to your satisfaction you mean because I haven’t heard others complaining of the same. And they NEED to defend themselves? Huh? I didn’t expect to find comments like this on a feminist site.

I’m really glad to have found FWD and I’m glad to have started coming to Harpyness more often because I’ve found comments at Feministing (my old haunt) disheartening to say the least, but comments like these remind me why I left that blog.

mischiefmanager, in your posturing about how disabledfeminists.com hasn’t catered adequately to your information needs, I think you failed to read the very first line of the comments policy at FWD. You’re engaging in classic manipulative derailing tactics that we’ve all seen hundreds (maybe thousands) of times.

Oh, now come on, we all need to be able to defend our ideas. No one’s trying to say that the disability rights movement is garbage or whatever, just that we have some minor qualms with certain priorities or tactics. If you can’t defend your ideas in an arena where everyone is basically on your side, how do you expect to defend them to the population at large? Being able to argue for your ideas is one of the most useful skills of all skills, regardless of context.

Honestly, I’ve been hanging out here a while, and it’s not like there are never disagreements — they lead to interesting and productive discussions, but only because people are willing to defend their arguments without taking disagreement personally.

@lauredhel – From the about page: “The content here ranges from basic information which is designed to introduce people who are new to disability issues or feminism to some core concepts, to more advanced topics, with the goal of promoting discussion, conversation, fellowship, and education.”

I find it a little disingenuous for a site to make 101 level education a part of its mission statement and then react with warnings and accusations of derailing when people who are coming in at a 101 level react with some pushback to ideas they don’t agree with. mischiefmanager is not the only person I saw this happen to — there were at least two other people who commented in (what seems to me like) good faith on language posts and warned about using silencing tactics. Again: “In a post labeled “101,” we anticipate that readers may not be very familiar with the topic under discussion, and we welcome thoughtful questions asking for clarification and more information.” If the comment policy was like the one at Shapely Prose, then sure, I’m on board with the sort of moderating behavior that’s going on, but instead it explicitly welcomes 101 commenters and doesn’t claim to be draconian (I mean that in only the best way regarding SP) in any way.

I’m not trying to say that people shouldn’t be angry or frustrated or moderate comments however they choose. But there is, to me, a contradiction between angry responses to 101-level commenters who have a disagreement with the content of a post and a mission statement that explicitly welcomes such commenters.

Of course people should be able to defend their opinions if they want to convince others of their POV. I am saying it is not appropriate to make FWD bloggers and allies come here to a space that is obviously not neutral, to try to convince our audience that their blog is worthwhile.

Ok, now I’m pissed off. I don’t appreciate malevolent motives being attributed to me when I explicitly and repeatedly said that I was asking questions in order to learn and that I was not in any way trying to insult or demean people. I respect the posters on FWD enough to assume they’re posting in good faith and I would hope that I’d get the same treatment. We’re on the internet here, so I can’t express myself in any other way than with words, after all.

Hard questions don’t mean hostility. They mean that someone is thinking about the ideas being put forth. I’m well aware that disability is a state that can happen to all of us, and probably will if we live long enough. So it would behoove all of us to be aware of the concerns expressed by those currently living with disabilities.

I come from two traditions that value the challenge of hard questions: I’m Jewish and trained as an attorney. In both of those worlds, you expect to have to defend your ideas and beliefs, and having to do that makes you a better thinker and also makes you consider the ideas of the other person in depth. How can those be bad things?

However, it appears to me from the comments here and there that the site is not, in fact, welcoming of people like me who are trying to learn. As baraqiel pointed out, I”m not the only person who was attacked for “derailing” when she asked a question that the mods didn’t like. The hosts have every right to have a space where they can talk about matters that affect them, free of tension and debate. So I will not be reading or posting there in the future.

But Sarah, no one is making them do anything. We have had controversies on this site before-even the harpies themselves have had some internecine disagreements. I asked questions that anyone proposing a new set of ideas should expect to be asked. Did they really expect that everyone would just take them at their word because they’re disabled and not take them seriously enough to engage with their ideas?

When you live in a difficult situation, you need comfort and support. There’s no question of that, and it’s great that there’s a new place for feminists with disabilities to go for those. If you want to invite people not in your situation to come and learn about your situation, though, you may get a different sort of response, which, while not warm and fuzzy, still carries with it respect for the questions at hand.

@lauredhel – Oh, now really, is that necessary? No, of course I’m not saying that. This has nothing to do with my personal reading preferences, otherwise I’d be criticizing them for not including more pictures of kittens. The only reason I brought up that statistic is because I think it would overblown for us to be focusing our discussion on the language issue when it wasn’t a priority of the site, but I think they’ve had enough posts on language use to indicate that it is a priority.

@SarahMC – I think the blog is worthwhile! I really, really do. That is why I am even having this conversation: because I think that the entire idea is a really good and important one but I have some minor disagreements about some methodology. But then again, I am not disabled, so if people who are think that my disagreements are invalid, they should feel free to either a) construct actual arguments against them, which I have not seen or b) ignore them. They don’t have to convince me that their blog is worthwhile: I already think it is. I am confident that other people can form their own conclusions on this question. But they are clearly not going to convince anyone of anything by taking option c) fail to engage with points and instead make accusations of whining, posturing, manipulation, etc.

I’m sorry if you think that this conversation is inappropriate; I will stop having it if you want, given that it’s your site, although if people do respond to me I would like the opportunity to respond to them.

Feminism 101: A marginalized person CAN educate a privileged person if they feel up to it. However, a privileged person cannot DEMAND that the marginalized person educate them, on any matter. They are the privileged one, and they bear the burden of educating themselves.

If that leaves them with no education (that they can find, because I guarantee you there is no issue which marginalized peoples have not discussed somewhere, and if you have a basic framework you can usually figure things out on your own as well), that is not the marginalized people’s fault. Maybe it’s a catch-22, but the marginalized peoples live in much more severe catch-22s every single moment of their lives — you don’t get to whine because you don’t get an “out” for being privileged.

@amandaw – There are options between a) receive 101-level question or disagreement and spend a lot of time and energy having a hopefully-productive discussion and b) receive 101-level question or disagreement and accuse commenter of derailing.

I don’t think anyone has expressed a problem with saying that you don’t want to have that conversation, or even ignoring the comment — it’s the hostile reaction that’s troubling. And again, I’m not saying that it’s always inappropriate to have a hostile reaction. As above: for a site with a policy like SP’s, that does not make it its mission to welcome 101-level commenters, such a response would, I think, be much more understandable. On a site that explicitly welcomes 101-level commenters, several times, again, a hostile response to 101-level commenters seems disingenuous.

We… do not “explicitly welcome 101-level commenters.” We explicitly welcome them on posts tagged “101.”

Keep in mind, as lauredhel already said, we have had these conversations a hundred times over, and we have seen these tactics a hundred times over, and we have a sense of when someone is open to education/good-faith back-and-forth and when someone is ultimately only looking for a way to dismiss a challenge to their privilege. Asking us to always take comments as the former is demanding our limited time and energy to fight with people who have zero interest in actually improving an oppressive system.

Sure, yes, and all such interactions that I personally have seen took place on posts labelled “101″.

I understand your concern regarding limited time and energy, but when you explicitly welcome 101-level commenters to a post, you are going to get people who disagree with the topic of the post. I, too, have had many discussions on the internet and have a sense of when people are open to discussion, and one thing that I know about that sense is that it isn’t infallible. Regarding the language posts specifically, which were all labelled “101″, all disagreement that I saw regarding whether or not the topic of the post was ableist language were met with accusations of derailing or silencing; even one commenter who took the time to write out three or four paragraphs regarding the etymology of a word and to mention that she had special knowledge in this area was met with such. I personally find some tension between posts that explicitly welcome 101-level commenters with the goal of promoting discussion and moderation behavior on those posts that shuts down any discussion that starts with a disagreement.

Perhaps the issue is that there is some conflict between the goal of welcoming 101-level commenters and the goal of having a safe space. Both of these are admirable goals, but I find that the sort of discussion generated by 101-level commenters is not compatible with what one normally thinks of as a safe space, mostly because safe spaces involve very little disagreement and 101-level spaces involve a lot of disagreement about things that you may consider to be basic and fundamental.

I think what we actually have here is a fundamental incongruence in understanding on what “101″ means. I expect new participants in a 101 level thread to realise that their knowledge is currently at a sub-101 level, to realise that this is because of their own privilege, and above all to listen to the voices that the site centres, instead of centring their own.

Learning is typically achieved more by listening than by talking. Lecturing from a position of ignorance about the ideas in question is not the same thing as a thoughtful, informed request for clarification.

Mischiefmanager above suggests that we are “proposing a new set of ideas”. We’re not. Good-faith participants who think this need to realise that the ideas are only new _to them personally_, and act accordingly.

Oh lord. Baraqiel and mischief, to clarify, I think that what these bloggers are trying to tell you is that intent is not everything here; these people are receiving your comments as hurtful, and if they owe you an obligation to presume good faith, you also owe them an obligation of good faith in assuming that they too are trying to engage in “productive discussion,” and simply dismissing the features of their oppression as logically or philosophically invalid doesn’t take the convo to good places either.

I am uncomfortable with the direction this has taken.

ETA: You know, it’s sort of like mansplaining. It’s hard, from a position of privilege (i.e. non-disability) to see why the undertrodden don’t have to justify themselves, but again, they feel tired of trying to justify themselves according to terms they find biased to begin with. If that makes any sense. I’m running out the door, and this isn’t my thread so I can’t moderate precisely, but I would be very sad to return and find this kind of “explain yourself!” theme continuing to dominate this thread. If you disagree with the disability bloggers, ok – I think you’re wrong – but in general I would be unhappy to find this a space in which the “justify your sense of oppression!” plays out when we are talking about obvious power disparities.

PS gets it, I think. We’re having to justify ourselves on terms that are based in oppression in the first place. Obviously, after some time, we tend to lose patience for that, and get on with a conversation set in better terms. If someone comes back with “But you don’t make sense in [the oppressive terms]! Explain yourself!” well, they might not get the best reaction.

Does acting accordingly mean not asking questions? Educating means precisely taking knowledge that is not new to you to people for whom it is new. If these ideas are new to me, I’m betting I’m not the only one.

Let’s just end this now. Everyone is hurt and upset and we’re not making any progress in achieving mutual understanding or respect. I have no intentions of ever visiting or referencing your site again, I promise. So how about if stop attacking me on a site on which I have always felt welcome in the past?

Okay, this is getting surreal. I have not asked people to justify their sense of oppression. I have asked people to defend their arguments. If all you want to say is, “I feel oppressed by this”, fine, say that, I can’t possibly argue, but if what you want to say is “this language is objectively oppressive”, that is a statement that can and should be examined and defended, no matter who’s saying it.

I have tried very, very hard to assume that people are acting in good faith when the only response to my points has been to accuse me of whining or to recap some feminism 101 stuff that I wasn’t even contradicting in the first place.

But, okay, PSoul, in the interests of peace, I will stop having this conversation in this forum.

So how about if stop attacking me on a site on which I have always felt welcome in the past?

… you’re worrying about feeling welcome? All due respect to the authors at this site, whom I happen to love dearly — I have never felt safe in comments here. Ever. And this sort of thing is why we wanted to create a space where PWD and women with disabilities specifically were centered, and don’t have to deal with justifying their basic humanity to people who are more interested in logic games than real life consequences.

That said, this is not my space. I don’t get to tell you what you can and can’t do. All we’ve done is defend ourselves on our own terms. With limited spoons (I’d have responded to specific comments rather than general subjects except that I simply don’t have the mental space for it, being so exhausted from work).

Are you joking? Seriously: do you even realize what you’re saying? Learning isn’t like breathing, where everyone does it more or less the same – there are even learning DISABILITIES, for crying out loud. You have in front of you VERY clear evidence that certain people – mischiefmanager and baraqiel, and now myself, among others – do not, in fact, learn well by listening silently. Even when these people are on your side (we are!), you’re engaging in the exact same form of oppression that you’re trying to work against: “I conceive of normality as X, and if you dare to speak up and tell me that you work differently than X then you are illegitimate, loud-mouthed, and not worth responding to.”

Look, disabled people and ardent supporters thereof, we can either have these conversations with you in the room or behind your backs. If you act like you have in this comment thread, then get used to us having the conversations behind your back. There’s a big difference between recognizing the legitimacy of experience and abandoning intellectual rigor (remember, “is” never implies “ought”), so no person’s experience makes them an authority on ANYTHING other than that experience – and, therefore, there’s no call for anybody to think that others should in general just take them at their word.